Quotes from Gabrielle Zevin

But the reason she was bourgeois was so she could make work that wasn't bourgeois. If she were cautious in her life, she could avoid compromising in her work.

mazer: The alternative to appropriation is a world in which artists only reference their own cultures.

And eventually, Sadie would be a stranger. And this would be a disaster for Sam. A tragedy. He would know that if he hadn't been the person he was, terrified and cowardly and petty and insecure and sexually panicked and broken, Sadie might have been his.

But life was always arriving. There was always another gate to pass through. (Until, of course, there wasn't.) She walked through another gate. What was a gate anyway? A doorway, she thought. A portal. The possibility of a different world. The possibility that you might walk through the door and reinvent yourself as something better than you had been before. By the time she reached the end of the torii gate pathway, she felt resolved.

The greatest pleasures of his life had been when he was by her side, playing or inventing. And how could she not feel that as well? There would never be another Sadie, and now this one was lost to him.

But sometimes, you have to make your game in the time that you have. If you're always aiming for perfection, you won't make anything at all.

But Ant was no longer a kid, and his eyes reminded Sam of his own. They had the patina of a person who had felt pain and expected to feel it again.

To allow yourself to play with another person is no small risk. It means allowing yourself to be open, to be exposed, to be hurt. It is the human equivalent of the dog rolling on its back—I know you won't hurt me, even though you can.

A year and a half alter, she could tell the story to Dov as an amusing brunch anecdote, and she realized she wasn't angry at Sam anymore. She began to feel a tenderness toward Sam and even an empathy for him.

From Nic's point of view, her older sister had been a primer on how not to live her life.

Maybe she hadn't asked the right or enough questions because she hadn't wanted to know the answers.

The way to turn an ex-lover into a friend is to never stop loving them, to know that when one phase of a relationship ends it can transform into something else. It is to acknowledge that love is both a constant and a variable at the same time. — You

What is a game?' Marx said. 'It is tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It's the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever.

A year and a half later, she could tell the story to Dov as an amusing brunch anecdote, and she realized she wasn't angry at Sam anymore. She began to feel a tenderness toward Sam and even an empathy for him.

So, what do I do?' she asked. 'You go back to work. You take advantage of the quiet time that a failure allows you. You remind yourself that no one is paying any attention to you ... You try again. You fail better.

Marx loved college theater. It wasn't so much being on stage that he loved, but the productions themselves. He loved the intimacy of being in a tight group of people who had come together, miraculously, for a brief period in time, for the purpose of making art. He mourned every time a production was over, and he rejoiced when he was cast in a new one.

have found that the most intimate relationships allow for a great deal of privacy within them.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

There are, he determines, infinite ways his mother doesn't die that night and only one way she does.

Every person you knew, every person you loved even, did not have to consume you for the time to have been worthwhile.

they found themselves drawn to Japanese references over and over: the deceptively innocent paintings of Yoshitomo Nara; Miyazaki anime like Kiki's Delivery Service and Princess Mononoke; other, more adult anime like Akira and Ghost in the Shell, both of which Sam had loved; and of course, Hokusai's Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji series, the first of which is The Great Wave.

Real love' is not just instinct, but intent.

Sadie was twenty-two when Ichigo was launched, and she hadn't figured out who she was in public yet. (She barely knew who she was in private.)

Tomorrow," she said, "we try again. We fail again. We do better.